Anneliese Dickman's Blogs

In 2007, when the New York General Assembly was considering whether to renew the legislation authorizing mayoral control of the New York City public schools, a Commission on School Governance was appointed to study the policy's benefits, drawbacks,...

Some people accuse the U.S. Congress of being all talk and little action. Now there's a website that's tracking that talk in a fun, interactive way, allowing you to pit any two Senators or members of Congress against one another in a war of words....

In the past few weeks Milwaukee has had numerous town hall meetings, panel discussions, and presentations regarding the idea of school district governance reform. At issue is whether the mayor of Milwaukee should be in charge of the Milwaukee Public...

The city-state of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, opened a new high-speed rail system last month. The Los Angeles Times reports that despite the city's crushing traffic congestion (estimated to cost over $1.4 billion annually in lost productivity), it...

Here at the Forum we try to keep our work current, focusing on topical issues of importance. Health care reform is obviously one such issue. Yet the Forum's mission is to inform local policy debates, not national ones. So it was not immediately...

Here at the Forum, we've been cautioning local governments for years about making budgeting decisions that help balance the current budget but contribute to deficits in future years. We just didn't see much humor in these types of desperate budget...

The Forum's latest research on K-12 education finds the region’s racial achievement gap on state reading and math tests has remained virtually constant over the past five years, as has the statewide achievement gap.As previously noted on this blog,...

The MPS school board will soon be considering a controversial recommendation from a special committee created to increase fiscal accountability within MPS. The committee's recommendation is to create a new Office of Accountability that reports...

The new transportation hub at the World Trade Center, designed by Santiago Calatrava, has risen from the pit of ground zero and looks to be a near twin of the Milwaukee Art Museum. The building is slated to open in 2012. Cost overruns and a slow...

Last winter, at the behest of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Forum conducted an analysis of other urban school districts that had undergone governance reform such as state or mayoral takeovers. Our findings are pretty much summed up by the...